Majority Of Antidepressants Do Not Work For Teens And Children With Major Depression

The AP (6/8, Cheng) reports, “Scientists say most antidepressants don’t work for children or teenagers with major depression, some may be unsafe, and the quality of evidence about these” medicines “is so bad the researchers cannot be sure if any are truly effective or safe.”

TIME (6/8, Park) reports that in order to find out “how effective” antidepressants “are in treating depression among younger people,” researchers from Oxford University “conducted an analysis of 34 trials of antidepressants involving more than 5,000 children or teens taking 14 different antidepressants.” In a meta-analysis published online June 8 in The Lancet, investigators found that “ratings of the depression before and after taking the medications did not change significantly.” Just one medication, fluoxetine, which is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for children and adolescents, “improved their depression.”